


Heavy Lightness

by FinelyDressedSpacemen



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eames' Stupid Cupid Exchange, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Beta Read, Not Really Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29323911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinelyDressedSpacemen/pseuds/FinelyDressedSpacemen
Summary: "This idiot died in front of Eames, and that idiot took a drug that can't be mixed with Somnacin and had no idea he was dreaming."
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 36
Collections: Eames' Stupid Cupid 2021





	1. Sad Hours Seem Long

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rainbyotes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainbyotes/gifts).



> This is my first completed fic in over a decade. I’m rusty. I’m a little concerned this story bears a striking resemblance to WW84 in that it is poorly written and largely inconsistent in tone. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it— especially you, Rainbyotes!
> 
> Prompt: idiots to lovers
> 
> Story Soundtrack
> 
> Hearts On Fire— Cut Copy  
> Things Can Only Get Better— Howard Jones  
> All My Life— Gigamesh
> 
> ...And a little bit of Dire Straits

>   
>  Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start  
>  And I bet, and you exploded into my heart  
>  And I forget, I forget the movie song  
>  When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?  
> 

^~*~^

“It hurts to be beautiful,” his mum used to say, usually after burning her hand on a curling iron or while plucking the sensitive, stretchy skin just beneath her eye brow. She’d repeat it like a mantra while she grunted through her Jane Fonda tapes, two hours at a time. Eames caught himself thinking it doing suicides in gym class, or getting slammed face first into the grass during a rugby match. It probably wasn’t healthy, the way it wormed its way into his mind, the way it flitted across his thoughts whenever things got the slightest bit inconvenient. It probably didn’t help when “beautiful” started meaning “ready.” It hurt to drag himself from job to red eye flight to job. It hurt to spend seventy-two hours awake, alive on energy drinks, eyes burning through a magnifier over new passports for another nameless dream team. It hurt to spend whole nights hooked up to the PASIV, rehearsing forges for hours at a time— sometimes a businessman, sometimes a grandmother, sometimes a shellacked, blonde woman growing steadily thinner, grunting through hours of _Jane Fonda Workout._

That afternoon, it specifically hurt in his lower back, but not as badly as it had that morning. It was stupid, really. He’d made it through ninety minutes of jogging, pull-ups, and dead lifts, only to strain his back doing cross sit-ups with a twenty pound medicine ball. _Twenty fucking pounds._ Eames was pretty sure his forearms each weighed more than that. Too many nights on airplanes, too many days in lounge chairs. Too many reasons to spend three hours at the gym each morning to keep himself in literal fighting shape. 

They’d offered narcotics at the urgent care (American medicine was truly a hell of a thing), but he’d turned them down. Most opiates interacted poorly with Somnacin, and Eames liked having a functioning liver. He’d accepted Valium instead, taking the doctor’s word for it that the anti-anxiety medicine would help relax the tension in his spine. For now, it was mostly just making him light headed. He shifted painfully in his chair. Man, it fucking _hurt_ to be beautiful. 

“I think we can do better,” Arthur said, frowning. Eames dragged his eyes up to the point man’s face and tried to focus on the job at hand. 

“What’s your plan, then?” Eames asked. Arthur began hurriedly drawing on the white board. 

“We loop the maze back on itself at the bank,” he explained. “The projections should run into each other, and that ought to confuse them for a while. They shouldn’t be able to find the vault without finding the ductwork. If we do our jobs right, they won’t be able to find that either.” It was elegant, Eames thought. Simple and impressive. He didn’t feel like saying so. He never quite felt like telling Arthur when he was amazing; no _“Arthur, your plan is truly genius,”_ or _“you are a masterclass in assiduousness and ingenuity,”_ or _“where do I donate to keep your tailor firmly focused on making sure your backside always looks exactly like it does at this moment?”_

“And how do you propose we test that?” Yusuf asked. 

“An easy field exercise,“ Arthur said, turning to Cobb. 

The extractor smiled. “Hide and seek.“

^~*~^

Eames was standing in a room built of old marble blocks, and he couldn’t quite recall how he got there. That wasn’t great.

“You’re not gonna last long down here, Mr. Eames,” Arthur teased. Eames blinked at him. Right— Arthur was there too. That was fine. Probably normal. Instead of a suit, he was dressed in all black. Eames’ mouth went a little dry at the sight of Arthur in cashmere. His pants, Eames noticed, were still nearly unbearably tight. 

“And why is that then, darling?“ Eames asked, straightening his jacket sleeve. He frowned a bit. The edges of his vision were a little blurry. They were in the bank for a reason— probably something for the job. Eames would just play along and pretend he had any clue what that reason was. Arthur would kill him if he knew Eames was under the influence at work. Cobb wouldn’t be far behind. 

“You stand out,” Arthur said, simply. “You are what you are.“ 

“And that would be?“ Eames took in the the casual way Arthur leaned against the stone wall, the barely noticeable uptick in the corner of his mouth. 

“In a word: ostentatious,” Arthur said. 

“Osten—“ Eames laughed, “ostentatious, Arthur, really.”

“Don’t worry,” Arthur said with a grin, tightening the silencer on his pistol. “I’ll have your back.”

“You always do,” Eames replied. He circled the room, trying his hardest to look interested in the marble blocking of the bank vault. “We make a good team.”

“We do,” Arthur agreed. 

(Teams? Were they on teams? There was something about teams, earlier. Some kind of capture the flag nonsense at the bank? Maybe some kind of promotion for opening a new savings account?)

Seriously, everything is weirder in America. 

“So,” Eames breathed. “Where to?”

“We’re staying right here. We’re gonna let them come to us.”

Eames frowned in confusion. This was not how bankers worked. This was not how banking worked at all. “Let who come to us, love?” 

Arthur smoothed the sides of his sweater. Eames pondered running his own hands down the cashmere instead. “Eames, your capacity to completely ignore everything going on around you never ceases to amaze me.” 

Really though, none of this made any fucking sense. Eames had a number of questions:

How had they gotten to the bank? 

Why were they at the bank? 

Where was everyone else? 

Why were they waiting for the banking staff to come to them? 

There was a wall of security deposit boxes behind a wrought iron gate to Eames’ right. Arthur didn’t seem interested in the slightest. His eyes were flitting nervously between the heavy door at the end of the room, and the large cold air return above him. His right hand twitched toward the gun at his belt.

(Add to the list: What kind of idiot security guard let a Walther in? Was this bank open carry?) 

“Twelve minutes,” Arthur muttered, staring at his watch. 

Had it really been that long? “Not exactly stellar service then,” Eames noted. 

“The goal is eighteen,” Arthur hummed. “I’d prefer even more.”

(Actually, boil that down to one question, for the sake of time: _What the fuck?_ )

“Cobb, come in,” Arthur barked into a radio he seemed to materialize from thin air.

“Not going so well over here Arthur, I’ll call you back later!” A series of loud bangs punctuated Cobb’s response. 

“Hang on, why is there screaming on his end?” Eames asked, moving towards Arthur. “Was that gunfire?” Arthur turned to Eames, his face a mask of confusion. 

“Eames, are you feeling ok?”

The grate from the vent fell to the floor with a harsh clang, followed quickly by three men in khakis and forest green polo shirts. 

Bank employees. 

From the ceiling. 

Eames blinked to clear his vision, which was growing steadily more blurry. 

Hang on now— five men. Five men from the ceiling. 

And one of them was attacking Arthur. 

“Eames!” He called, expectantly. Eames was as surprised as anyone when he pulled a gun from his waistband and shot the fucker right between the eyes. “Took you long enough!” Arthur gasped, rounding on his heel to take out two others. 

Number four came for Eames, pulling a knife from thin air. Eames grappled, somewhat sluggishly, furiously blinking haze from his vision. The knife grazed his shoulder and Eames yelped. 

“Are you alright?!” Arthur yelled, his head turning briefly. 

A gun shot. 

Another. 

Eames shanked the frenzied bank teller with his own knife and dropped him to the marble floor. His shoulders heaved with exertion, lungs burning. He wiped the red from his hands against his trousers. 

“What the bloody hell was—“ 

“Eames,” Arthur whispered. He turned slightly, his hand pressed against the black cashmere of his sweater. “I—“ the hand drifted up, shaking, dripping with hot blood. 

He stumbled. Eames’ arms were around him in a blink. “No—“ Eames gasped, lowering Arthur to the ground. Arthur clung to his jacket in pain. “No, no, no. It’s alright,” Eames whispered. 

“Eames—“ Arthur started. 

“Shh,” Eames whispered, his hand stroking Arthur’s face. “I’ll find help, you just hang on.” Arthur’s brow knit in confusion.

“Eames, what are you— _aughh!”_ Arthur whimpered with pain, body contorting in the bigger man’s arms. Eames pressed Arthur’s hands tighter against the wound in his abdomen. 

“Arthur!” Eames barked. “You stay awake, you hear me?” But Arthur was growing more and more pale, his breathing ragged. Beneath him, blood pooled freely. “ _Please,_ ” Eames begged, desperately. He held Arthur tighter. Arthur gurgled something quietly, his shoulders falling slack. His dark eyes slid closed. 

Eames didn’t try to stop the tears welling in his eyes as his blood-covered hands shook beneath the point man’s shoulders. He pressed his mouth to Arthur’s and blew. He slammed his fist against his chest, but all it did was force more blood out of his abdomen. Eames grasped for the radio and pressed the button. “Cobb,” his voice broke. “Cobb where the fuck are you?”

“I’m on the outside of the bank,” he replied. The radio beeped happily. “Did they reach the vault?”

“Arthur—“ Eames began. He broke off with a startled sob. The radio clattered to the floor. 

“Eames?” the radio chirped. “Eames, you there?”

Eames had absolutely no idea how this happened. He had no idea why. It didn’t matter. Fuck, _it didn’t matter._ Nothing mattered. There was Arthur, lying cold and broken in Eames lap. He was unable to restrain a distraught wail as he gathered Arthur closer, laying gentle kisses against the face of the only person in the world he actually trusted. 

And fuck, when did that happen? When did Arthur become so important? Why hadn’t he ever told him just how important he was? Arthur would have scoffed. He would have rolled his eyes, said something harsh, like, “Charm someone who cares, Mr. Eames.” It didn’t matter. Someone should have told Arthur every day how absolutely wonderful he was. Someone should have kissed him awake each morning, and made love to him until he couldn’t stay awake each night. Someone should have held doors open for him, and bought him frou frou coffee each morning, and picked up his dry cleaning, and manhandled him onto high surfaces every once in a while, just to remind him he was lovely, and kissable, and housed in too many layers in those blasted suits. 

There was music playing softly over the banks speaker system. It sounded like a French song Arthur used to like. He’d hear all the French music he wanted to now— maybe with Mal beside him. 

Untethered, Eames openly wept.

^~*~^

“What the fuck is your problem?” Eames snapped his eyes open to find a literal ghost standing over him. “Why didn’t you just shoot me out?” Cobb caught him heavily as Eames fully tumbled out of the lawn chair. Eames gaped up at Arthur, skin pale, eyes wild.

“You— I _saw_ you—“ Eames broke off, panting heavily.

Arthur knelt in front of him with a frown. He gently pressed the back of his hand against Eames forehead, then both cheeks. Cobb watched with concern. “Does he have a fever?” He asked. 

“What are you on, Eames?” Arthur asked flatly. Behind him, Yusuf took his glasses off. 

“What’s all this then?”

“Eames lost his grip on reality,” Arthur answered, his eyes never leaving Eames’ panicked ones. “ it was like he completely forgot it was a dream— like he didn’t realize he even could be dreaming.”

“Eames,” Yusuf began, crouching next to Arthur. “What have you taken today?”

Eames glanced rapidly between them, eyes wide. He groaned, scrunching then tightly. It was a fucking dream. Why hadn’t he noticed? “Valium,” he ground out. Arthur’s frown deepened. “Where’s my fucking totem?” He muttered. He patted his pockets for his chip, and rolled it carefully between his fingers. A deep sigh escaped him. 

“There you have it,” Yusuf muttered. “Your back again?” He asked, less than gently. 

“Yeah,” Eames winced. 

“Listen to me: you are old, my friend. I want you to learn this phrase in every language you know. I would like some naproxen. Please repeat.”

“I’m not going to bloody—“

“I would like... some naproxen.”

“I would like some fucking naproxen, alright, I get it.”

Yusuf straightened up, fiddling with a pen. “Next time tell them you take Ambien.”

Arthur blinked up at the chemist. “What?”

“Somnacin’s about 60% Ambien,” Yusuf shrugged. 

Arthur’s face remained a mixture of concerned and annoyed. Eames couldn’t bear to look at him. “Right then,” he murdered, slapping his knees. “I think I need the afternoon.” He stood too quickly, back seizing immediately. He struggled to remain fully upright, unable to stand the indignity of being caught by Dominic Cobb a second time. No one tried to stop him as he left.


	2. Teach Me How I Should Forget To Think

“Right,” Yusuf began as the door shut. “What kind of bloody shit show happened down there?”

“I’m not sure,” Cobb replied. “Arthur was the one with Eames.” Arthur blinked at their expectant faces. 

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” he said. “Like I said: Eames didn’t realize it was a dream.” Arthur turned his focus to cleaning up the PASIV. 

“And?” Cobb prodded. 

“And I got shot and he didn’t react well.” 

Yusuf’s groan was almost synchronized to Cobb’s sigh. “You died a violent death in front of him while he had no clue he was in a dream,” he said. 

“You died in front of Eames,” Cobb clarified. “And you have no clue why that might have upset him a little.”

“I mean, I have _some_ clue,” Arthur said, defensively. His face scrunched up in concentration as he battled with a particularly over-tightened needle. “I would imagine that amount of blood coming out of a coworker is very upsetting if you think it’s real.”

“Coworker,” Yusuf drawled. 

Cobb shook his head in disbelief. “Arthur, I’m having some serious doubts about your observational skills. We may need another point man for this job.”

Ariadne chose that moment to return to the warehouse, arms laden with sandwiches. “Hey,” she greeted, smiling obliviously. “How’d the test run go?”

“Fine,” Arthur replied. “We need to fine tune the vent system a little more.”

“Bad,” Cobb corrected. “It went very bad.” Ariadne’s smile faltered. 

“This idiot died in front of Eames, and that idiot took a drug that can’t be mixed with Somnacin and had no idea he was dreaming,” Yusuf barked. Ariadne’s face crumpled.

“Oh my God— is Eames ok?”

“Why wouldn’t he be ok?” Arthur yelled. “And why is everyone acting like I got killed on purpose or, like I’m somehow responsible for Eames deciding to take a fucking muscle relaxer before going under heavy sedation?”

“Valium, actually,” Yusuf corrected. 

“For fuck’s sake!” Arthur breathed, running a hand over his face. 

“Arthur,” Cobb began. He pressed his fingertips to his temples. “Would it upset you to see Eames die?”

“I’ve seen Eames die at least a dozen times,” Arthur growled, slamming the PASIV shut.

“In real life,” Ariadne added, quietly. 

Arthur looked up at her slowly. “Of course it would,” he stated flatly. 

“Why?” Yusuf asked. His smile tightened. 

“What the f— because I give a shit about him. Of course I’d be upset if he died.” Arthur was completely bewildered. 

“Wait,” Ariadne frowned. “You really meant coworker, didn’t you?”

“There’s no way,” Yusuf said. “I’ve known Eames for years and he’s never been this way over anyone.”

“You’ve never told him,” Ariadne accused. 

“Told him _what?_ ” Arthur challenged. 

“You’re in love with him,” Cobb answered. “And he’s in love with you.”

The bottom of Arthur’s stomach fell a solid foot inside his body, taking all the heat from his face and hands along with it. His mind raced around his options, and the accompanying possibilities. No, Eames was not in love with him. Admitting his own feelings would do nothing but further complicate his already complicated working relationship with the forger, and make his otherwise somewhat tolerable coworkers completely unbearable. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Arthur warned. He did his best to look vaguely threatening and violent. Instead, he just looked mildly constipated. 

“The hell we don’t,” Cobb growled. “I’ve been warning you for years to not let personal feelings complicate the job.” And he had. Then again, Arthur didn’t need a whole lot of warning after spending a night watching a street crew clean Mal’s blood off the pavement. “You’re usually a lot smarter than you’re acting right now. I expect more from you.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Arthur snapped. 

“Making things more complicated than they have to be. Clean your personal shit up and keep it out of this warehouse.” 

There was nothing for it. There was no denying it. Arthur was thoroughly besotted with Eames, and despite his best efforts, everyone knew. 

“I don’t understand,” he said, quietly, panic still jumping excitedly in his chest. “I’ve been careful. How did you know?“ 

“The first level of the Robert Fischer job,” Ariadne said. It was totally obvious.” Arthur blinked, unable to connect the dots. “The outfits,” Ariadne clarified. 

“I get it,” Yusuf smiled.

“What outfits?” Arthur frowned. 

“My God,” Cobb breathed. “ _You dressed like him._ ”

“I dressed like a _taxi driver._ ”

“And Eames was wearing a suit!” Cobbs eyes widened to an almost normal level of openness. 

“ _Mr. Eames_ was wearing a suit,” Ariadne corrected with an amused glint in her eye. 

Arthur considered the likelihood of a natural disaster or large scale nuclear meltdown happening at that very moment. Anything that might wipe him from the face of the earth would be welcome. 

“They literally dressed as each other,” Yusuf muttered. “How are two people of their intellect this stupid?”

“Arthur, look.” Ariadne smiled benevolently as Arthur’s very carefully built lie crumbled around him. “I get that it’s scary. I get they you don’t want to say it. But you should just say it.”

“Or you should say _something_ ,” Cobb groused. “I need both of your heads in this. You need to focus, and we can’t afford to lose our forger on this one.”

“I’ll be back,” Arthur said shortly, snatching a bag of two sandwiches out of Ariadne’s arms and storming out. 

“Those weren’t even the right ones," she grumbled over the sound of the slamming door.

^~*~^

When Arthur was a kid, he had a hell of a case of TAG syndrome. Every time his dad PCS’d, it would be a new school, a new guidance counselor, and a new chorus of the same monotonous tune:

_Your son is incredibly gifted._

_His test scores are off the charts._

_Are you sure you don’t want to start him a grade higher? From the looks of him, you’ve done that before._

_If he keeps up this level of performance the ivy leagues aren’t out of the question._

_Imagine, Harvard medical school!_

_Have you considered taking up rowing?_

_No, you don’t have time for something like ROTC, but I’d like you to meet the teacher in charge of our Talented and Gifted program._

_Our son the doctor!_

_Oh honey, you can’t tell your Aunt Thula. I want to be the one to tell everybody. He’s going to graduate MIT, and then medical school, marry a nice Jewish girl, make me at least three grand babies..._

The truth was: _Arthur was a fucking idiot._ Oh, sure, he was smart. He really did graduate from MIT after all, and he spent three years in the Special Forces before quietly being med boarded out at 100% with full unemployability. Nobody at the VA was quite sure what effect Project Somnacin had on his mind, and nobody quite wanted to find out, or risk Arthur out in the workplace. Arthur kept that to himself, though, along with a lot of other things. At this point, it was simply a habit to keep his personal life locked down tightly (there would be no naturally born grandbabies for Mother Aaronson), and he prided himself on remaining both ambiguous and professional. Arthur was certain that nobody knew as much about him as Cobb, and Cobb didn’t know half of what he thought he did. 

But Arthur was an absolute fucking idiot, because apparently his entire dreamshare team was aware that he was head over heels in love with their forger. 

It wasn’t love at first sight (Arthur was fairly certain he was incapable of that kind of impulsivity). It started slow. It was hard not to notice Eames physically, of course, but those were thoughts Arthur was well practiced in ignoring. No, what really started it was Eames’ _brain._ Maybe Arthur was smart. Maybe he really had grown up all talented and gifted. Whatever Arthur was, Eames was an absolute genius. Sure, he was shady, a liar, and a thief. But if Eames was on their job, the best plan Arthur and Cobb could collectively come up with after days of planning would be summarily thrown out for some genius idea Eames posited seconds after hearing the most basic details of the mission. He was creative, and he was legitimately bright while he was at it. 

It’s true that this initially drove Arthur mad with jealousy. He would admit that. It is also true that Arthur generally reacted to this by insulting Eames ideas as “reckless,” “vague,” or “something out of an action movie you're dumb enough to think could work in reality.” At some point this pattern became so ingrained that Eames would kick at Arthur even when he tried to reel it back in and be polite for a change. Suddenly Arthur was a “condescending little prick.” And that was fine. Animosity, after all, made it easier to pretend he wasn’t at least a little bit attracted to Eames, with his shoulders, and his cleverness, and his gravelly British accent. 

It was in Düsseldorf that he became absolutely hopeless. He’d woken up to find himself tied to his chair. Cobb was long gone, as were Eames and Nash. He could see bodies in the corner, and hear yelling and scuffling beyond the door. As he’d struggled with the ropes holding him down and blinked around the blood dripping into his right eye, he thought of what it might be like to die at twenty-eight, alone in an abandoned office building in Germany. If someone found him, they wouldn’t have a clue who he was. He’d never see his family again, and that would be ok. They might assume he was dead, or they might just assume he’d disappeared to save his mother from dying from her perpetual disappointment. 

The door had swung open around the time Arthur was fully ready to give up, and it was Eames who had jogged in, hair hanging limply in his face, left leg dragging a bit. He’d bent over to suck in air as he reached Arthur. “Cobb?” Arthur had asked. 

Eames shook his head. “Did a runner,” he’d gasped. 

“Nash?”

“Same.” Eames had dropped into the floor next to Arthur, too exhausted to stay on his feet. 

“Why are you still here, Mr. Eames?” Arthur had asked, quietly. 

Eames had smiled, a sort of relaxed and open smile that made Arthur think he would do literally anything it took to see that smile again. “Wasn’t just going to leave you here, darling, was I?” Eames had asked, slapping Arthur on the knee like this was all very funny. Just like that, Arthur was absolutely smitten. And that was fine. Nobody needed to know, least of all Eames. 

So sometimes things got heated and Arthur thought about punching Eames, while Eames clearly thought about punching him. That was fine too. But then sometimes he found he didn’t really want to punch Eames mouth so much as bite it while he ripped the man’s shirt off, and that was _absolutely unacceptable._ Sometimes he found himself sighing wistfully when Eames would go through an unnecessarily long winded and dramatic description of a plan he was still actively forming. If he quickly covered it up with an insult, nobody noticed he was compensating. 

He was certain that nobody noticed he always took the seat nearest Eames. Nobody could tell he was trying not to smile whenever he so much as looked at him. Nobody noticed him circling Eames like an angry mastiff whenever things got dicey, or noticed the little things he would do for Eames that he didn’t for the others, like helping him with his cannula, or highlighting his case files. 

...except that apparently everybody noticed, because Arthur was a fucking idiot. 

The only person who was still in the dark was Eames, who the others were convinced was silently suffering the same lonely melancholy as Arthur. Arthur wasn’t willing to hope they were right. He ran point for a living. It was his job to be observant, and he’d never observed more than casual flirting from Eames. Still, he worried. In his rebellious lizard brain, Arthur was very much full of mother hen tendencies. He could shove down the impulse to nurse Eames back to full physical health. He might have even been able to ignore the longing he felt to make sure the forger was truly fine, were it not for the angry and judgmental glares he’d received from the others. He couldn’t shut down the cold fear that gripped in his chest, or the little voice whispering, “there goes that smile for good.” That (plus three blocks of walking) was how he found himself knocking on Eames’ hotel room door and juggling a bag of sandwiches. “Fuck,” he breathed. “These aren’t even the right ones.”

^~*~^

Eames sighed as he opened the door. “I said I needed the afternoon.” 

Arthur shoved past him. “I brought you food.” 

Eames shut the door slowly. “What do you want, Arthur?” He asked, his tone flat. 

“I think we should talk,” Arthur replied. He set the sandwich bag down on the room’s spartan desk and shrugged out of his suit jacket. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Eames warned. He walked to the desk to peruse the bag. “Neither of these is what I ordered,” he muttered. 

“About today,” blurted Arthur. 

“It’s nothing,” Eames barked. “I have a bad back. It’s not a weakness I publicly flaunt. I took a pill from a doctor with bad information, and I got a little fuzzy in the dream. That’s all. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“It wasn’t just that,” Arthur said. “I’ve been on jobs with you where things have gone south in reality. I’ve never seen you react that way.”

“Yeah, well it wasn’t you getting shot, was it?” The color drained from Eames’ face. “It’s possible I’m still slightly out of it.”

“Eames, tell me what’s wrong,” Arthur said. He stepped closer. “It doesn’t matter what you tell me. It’ll be fine.”

“It does matter and it won’t be,” Eames intoned. 

“Just tell me,” Arthur whispered. 

Eames sat down on the end of the bed and pressed his hands together in concentration. Arthur sat down next to him, but Eames didn’t seem to register his presence. It was a long while before he spoke. “You should know,” he began. “You are everything to me. And I know that’s not something you really want to hear, and I know that it’s problematic and may make you uncomfortable.” 

Arthur was genuinely floored (because he was a bonafide fucking idiot). It couldn’t be that easy, not after all this time. “I—“

“I’m sorry,” Eames interrupted. It’s not an excuse, but I need to say it. I love you. I have for a long time. There’s nothing about you that isn’t absolutely brilliant and the time I don’t spend with you I spend thinking about you. You don’t have to say anything. I just—“ Eames sighed, looking away. “I saw you bleeding out and all I could think about was… Doesn’t matter. I won’t bring it up again.” Eames smiled tightly in the direction of the kitchenette, unable to raise his gaze to the point man’s. 

_Fuck it,_ Arthur thought. 

Arthur took his face in his hands and drew Eames into a slow, gentle kiss. It was quiet and sweet, and any lucidity Eames had regained immediately dissolved into static in his brain. Arthur pulled back to look him in the eyes. “If anyone ever hurt you, I would put them through a wood chipper,” he stated calmly, brushing Eames cheek with the pad of his thumb. 

“Arthur,” Eames breathed. Arthur kissed him again. 

“And if you died, at best, I’d retire. At worst, I’d follow right behind.”

“Darling, that’s not the _healthiest_ level of devo—“ but then Arthur was kissing him again, more forcefully this time, and Eames obligingly shut up. 

“It’s possible I love you,” Arthur whispered against Eames’ lips, catching them again. Eames groaned.

“You scared the heart out of me,” he replied, quietly. 

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.”

Arthur sighed. He leaned his head against Eames’ shoulder. “You should lay down,” he said. “I know your back still hurts.”

“Irrelevant,” Eames chirped. “I can lay down later.”

“What if I lay down too?” Arthur asked. 

“Better offer,” Eames sighed,” kicking his shoes off. He stretched out across the comforter and tried not to visibly wince. Arthur slid down beside him. 

“How long?” Arthur asked, curiously.

“About a year before the Fischer job,” he said. “You?”

“Düsseldorf,” Arthur replied, smiling slowly. 

“Düsseldorf,” Eames whispered in awe, rolling up on his side. 

“I’m an idiot,” Arthur explained. 

“Well I’m not much better, but I have other skillsets.” Eames leaned in to press another warm kiss to Arthur’s mouth. Arthur curled a tentative arm around Eames’ waist and sighed. 

It was late when Arthur finally got up, disappearing into the room’s small bathroom. He was quiet when he returned, Italian shoes ghostlike on the dirty carpet. “I expect you back at work bright and early tomorrow,” Arthur said. On the bedside table, he set a small glass of water and two pills. Eames smiled— naproxen. Arthur spared a moment to brush a strand of hair away from Eames’ face. He sighed, leaning down to kiss him one last time. “Through a fucking wood chipper, Mr. Eames,” he whispered.

^~*~^

>   
>  And a lovestruck Romeo, he sang the streets a serenade  
>  Laying everybody low with a love song that he made  
>  Find a convenient streetlight, steps out of the shade  
>  He says something like, "You and me, babe, how about it?"  
> 


End file.
